


Make It Real

by PluvioRose



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Behind the Scenes, Bobby is Everyone's Dad, Buck is incredibly guilty, Canon Compliant, Dad Bobby Nash, Emotional Eddie, Guilty Buck, Hurt Evan Buckley, Maddie is a good big sister, Men Crying, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Evan Buckley, Slight Canon Divergence, The Searchers - Freeform, give everyone a hug, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-05 02:43:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21206129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PluvioRose/pseuds/PluvioRose
Summary: Buck knows the firetruck falling on his leg was real. He has the scars to prove it.Buck knows the pulmonary embolism was real. He has the bloody shirt to prove it.Buck knows the tsunami was real. He has soaking wet clothes and a decimated city to prove it.Buck knows that Christopher surviving is real. He can't prove it yet, but he will.A deeper look at Buck's journey through a post-tsunami Los Angeles, his search for Christopher, and what was happening during all the moments we didn't get to see him on screen.





	1. Don't Stop Now

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been brave enough to share any of my work before, but this show has me addicted and gutted and inspired all at the same time. I wanted to write a more in-depth look at Buck's efforts after the tsunami, and this is what happened! This will mostly follow canon, with a bit of my own musings thrown in to spice it up a bit. I've got everything written up to the VA hospital, and I'm thinking I'll cover the aftermath a bit too. That's probably where "mostly canon" will turn into "ehhh maybe some canon", but we'll see how it goes. 
> 
> Obviously, I own nothing of 9-1-1 aside from my own imaginings and I make no profit off this except the joy of sharing it with others. Kudos and comments are welcome, and I am my own beta, so all mistakes here are the product of yours truly.

_T_ _hump-thump…thump-thump…thump-thump… _

Evan Buckley’s heartbeat thrummed in his ears like the roaring of the ocean he’d only just been able to extract himself from. The beats echoed alongside his heaving breaths and the sloshing of his aching legs through the water as he searched desperately for the one thing, the one person, he should’ve never let out of his sight.

“Christopher! CHRISTOPHER!!”

Buck’s throat was raw from his screams, his pleas for the little boy he’d grown to care for more than anyone else in the world—save his big sister.

Buck just couldn’t believe he’d managed to lose Christopher. The splash he’d made when he fell off the 136 ladder truck would haunt him for the rest of his life. The sight of that empty seat, of Buck’s immediate, devastating failure, would gut him like a rusty knife every moment of every day. It didn’t matter that Buck had immediately jumped back into the churning ocean; Christopher was lost to him and had disappeared completely from sight.

He didn’t know how many minutes or hours had passed since what he hoped was the last of the waves had receded. All he knew was water, thrumming pain, and the agony of the guilt over what he’d allowed to happen. _ I just have to find him. _

“CHRIS! CHRISTOPHER!!”

He kept screaming Christopher’s name over and over and over again, ignoring the other devastated faces of survivors around him. He’d done enough for survivors and look what had happened. _ Some fireman you are, Buckley. _

“Has anyone seen a boy?! In the water?!”

People were staring at him now, the sympathetic faces at his pleas like bullets of shame hitting him from all sides. “He’s eight! Got brown hair…glasses…yellow t-shirt?” His last sentence was punctuated by the hopelessness that had begun to creep in. He refused to allow it to take him over. He had to find Christopher; there was no alternative.

Buck wasn’t sure how many miles he’d walked, from one end of the city to the other. He scoured every emergency post and nothing. Christopher was just gone.

Stumbling upon group after group, he asked them all the same question, “Have you seen a little boy?”, only to get a negative response each time. It was after he’d asked the latest group of soaked, injured victims, he saw them.

_ Are those… _

The glasses were unmistakable; their red Suiters tangled around a bunch of palm leaves and floating in the water. Buck stumbled through the flotsam to reach the glasses, grabbing them up delicately in his hands, while the desolation of his situation once again hit him like a ton of bricks.

_ Th-thump-thump-thump…th-th-thump-thump-thump-thump… _

His heart somehow began to stutter and race at the same time. _ It can’t be…he can’t be… _Buck swiveled his head around, pleading with any deity who would listen to show Christopher alive nearby somewhere and not floating in this disgusting water.

Buck had never been a religious man, but he’d give anything to any force willing to help him in that moment.

He placed the glasses gently over his head, refusing to let them out of his sight, even though they would be unwearable once Christopher got them back again. _ He’s alive…he has to be. What will I tell Eddie if…? _

He couldn’t finish the thought, refused to allow himself to consider the alternative to finding his young friend. _ Keep going. Keep looking. He’s out there. You _ ** _will _ ** _ find him. _

“I just…have to keep…going.”

The efforts of wading through the water, the pain of knowing Christopher was lost out there somewhere—alone and terrified—and Eddie didn’t have a clue, was searing Buck like he’d left his hand on a hot stove. He felt like he was burning from the inside out, despite the soaked state of his clothing and the freezing water he was parading through.

Deep in the recesses of his mind, Buck knew there was a good chance he’d gotten cut, was maybe developing an infection somewhere, explaining the heat of his skin. His leg had been pulsing with agony for the last he didn’t even know how long, the cuts on his face continued to slowly seep blood into his left eye, and he didn’t want to think about the possibility of developing another blood clot. He just hoped that the round of thinners he’d taken that morning, whenever that morning was, wouldn’t cause any major wounds to bleed him dry before he’d found Christopher.

_ You find Christopher first. Then, you can live long enough to return the boy to his father and let him murder you for losing his son. _

After finding Christopher’s glasses, Buck had continued for another five blocks, internally berating his failures the whole time, before hanging a right and going another three streets. His eyes had been sweeping the water, looking for any kind of sign that Christopher had been there, pleading with people to tell them if they’d seen anyone who’d even resembled a kid his age when he heard it.

“Hey! There’s a kid under here!”

For what must have been the millionth time that day, Buck’s heart stopped. “Christopher? Christopher! I got you!” He ran towards the few people crowded around the sign, pinning down what he could only pray was an alive Christopher. “Hey! Hey big guy! Me and you! Come on!”

He counted off a rapid “3-2-1” and lifted the sign off the victim. The sign managed to slice another cut into Buck’s arm, but he ignored the pain with a wince in favor of relief at saving someone. His respite was short-lived when he realized it was a teenage girl and not Christopher he’d help rescue.

The cheers of success from the gathered group rang in his ears, but Buck only had thoughts for Eddie’s missing son. “Uh hey hey! Excuse me! I’m…uh…I’m looking for an eight-year-old boy! H-his name is Christopher and he’s always smiling. He’s got CP…cerebral palsy? He’s got-he’s got brown hair! Y-yellow shirt?”

“Yeah, I think I saw him.” A guy who looked a few years younger than Buck in a wet suit, chin-length hair, and bruised cheeks came forward.

“Where.”

“He was headed with a group to that cupcakery place. I heard they’re handing out water.”

Buck whipped his head behind him, trying to envision Christopher standing in front of him, rather than blocks away. “Uh…cupcakery. Wh-what is that?”

The young surfer raised his hands to point past Buck. “You know, cupcake bakery? It’s about…six or seven blocks south of here on Strand.”

For the first moment in what had to be ages, Buck felt hope rising within his chest. Forcing out a quick “thank you”, he took off running in the direction the kid had pointed out.

* * *

Sloshing through the water as quickly as his legs would carry him, Buck tried to keep count of the blocks in his head. Most of the street signs were bent or missing, and he wanted to kick himself for not asking what color the building was or even the name of the ridiculous-sounding place.

Wading through the debris-filled water took far longer than Buck was happy with, his exhaustion slowing him down while his adrenaline kept him moving. _ Breathe…just breathe. Keep moving…keep searching…find him. _ The faster the former firefighter— _ don’t think about it— _tried to run, the faster the sun seemed to set over Los Angeles.

Buck’s search in the daylight had felt impossible enough; finding Christopher in the dark of the city was going to be even worse. But Christopher was just a little boy, alone and probably frightened, and Buck wasn’t about to leave him to face the dark of the night alone. Not after what Buck had already allowed to happen.

The closer he got to where he thought the bakery to be, the less water he had to wade through until finally there wasn’t any. He thanked whatever lucky stars he may have had for small favors. The city was in ruins; lights and signs down everywhere had the place looking like a warzone. But, thankfully, someone must have felt pity for Buck and left the cupcakery’s sign undamaged. The garish pink and green sign, coupled with the shouts of “Fresh water to your left!”, were like a beacon of hope for Buck.

He stumbled over debris and through people lining up for much-needed libations, searching for the little boy he’d failed so many times already. Sliding his eyes from side to side, he caught sight of a striped shirt, a head of brown hair, a little body held safely by a woman and looking almost completely, thankfully unharmed.

“Christopher.” Buck felt a thrill of joy run through him for the first time in hours at the sight of the young boy. “Christopher! I’m here! Hey! Hey! Christopher!”

A smile of pure relief attempted to crack his face as he pushed through people to reach Christopher. But, when he finally dropped to his knees and got his hands on the young boy’s shoulders to turn him around, the joy died within him.

_ It’s not him… _

The young boy, looking terrified of Buck, wasn’t the right boy he was looking for. Buck’s jaw dropped, and as the woman—the boy’s mother, he could only assume—lead the kid away, the pain of yet another failure ripped through him. Clenching his fist against his chest before letting his hands fall, Buck managed to stagger ungracefully to his feet.

His adrenaline seemed to finally be wearing off and although Buck found this unacceptable, the roaring in his ears was preventing him from doing anything other than turning in circles of confusion. It was as though he was back in the water again, the waves rushing around them, cutting off his sense, and preventing him from marching ahead, from moving forward.

Through his ragged breathing and the throbbing of his broken heart or perhaps the pain in his leg, Buck thought he could hear someone trying to reach him. “Mister, are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

Buck turned and saw a kid, _ probably not much older than Christopher _, looking miraculously untouched by the devastation they were all standing in. The older of the two looked down at his arm and realized the cut he’d gotten from the sign earlier in the day had started a steady gush down his forearm. Buck almost found it comical how much the color of his blood reminded him of the 118’s firetrucks.

The pain of the loss of his firehouse, of his team, of Christopher, reminded him of how much he’d managed to fail Eddie again. Buck felt his knees go out from under him and a series of hands catch him, before depositing him in a chair.

“Can I get you something for that?” Buck stared up at the teen who’d offered help while grabbing onto Buck’s shoulder to steady him. But the older of the two could only stare out at the city’s landscape, shaking his head, trying to explain that he had to go. He had to keep going, to find Christopher.

Buck started to rise from the chair, but the teen pushed him back into it. “You should sit down, mister. You look like you’re about to fall over. Here,” a water bottle was pushed into Buck’s hand. “Drink it, man, and let me try and help you.”

Being a firefighter was the only thing Buck had ever wanted to do or be. When he was younger, seeing what Doug had done to Maddie, knowing what people could do to each other, had driven him into wanting to help. He wanted to save people, to be a **hero. **Not so much for the glory of it, but just because he knew saving people was what he was meant to do. He was meant to be the one to stand in the path of the blaze, to stop it from hurting anyone else, regardless of whether the blaze was a person or a fire. Seeing this young man doing what he could to help Buck, a man he didn’t know from anyone, reminded him why he needed to be strong and fight.

Buck watched as the kid ripped off the bottom of his flannel shirt and started wrapping it around his forearm. “Th-thank you.” His raw throat ached with the effort of barely whispering after screaming himself hoarse all day. “What’s your name?”

“Shep, short for Shepard.” Shep tied off the flannel around Buck’s arm, testing the strength of its knot and ensuring it wasn’t too tight. “You?”

“Buck, short for Buckley.” He tried to smile at the kid, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength. “Ha-have you seen a little boy? Brown hair in a yellow striped shirt? Name’s Christopher.”

Shep looked up at the man, practically wincing at the sorrow shining in the man’s eyes. “No, sorry, I haven’t.” The sight of Buck’s shoulders sagging in defeat cut him. He could only imagine how the guy felt losing his kid. Standing up, he tried looking around to see if there was any right direction to point Buck in when a thought hit him.

“Hey, you know…” Buck raised his head at the boy’s trailing voice. “They set up the old hospital not far from here to help people who got hurt or needed to find people. Maybe-” Shep swept his eyes from the block he’d been staring down back to Buck, “Maybe that’s where you’ll find Christopher?”

Practically leaping to his feet, Buck crushed the water bottle in his fist, unaware that he’d even finished the water in the first place. He grabbed Shep’s shoulder with his left hand, ignoring the stinging of the makeshift bandage. “Just tell me where.”


	2. Beneath the Fathoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two to the tsunami aftermath. Mostly canon continues in this chapter, and we'll get to see deeper into Buck's reaction to the events at the VA hospital. 
> 
> Once again, any grammatical oddities are a product of yours truly.

After a hastened thanks to Shepard and quick squeeze to the kid’s shoulder, Buck took off in the direction of the old VA hospital. Amazed that he was managing to run at all with how dead he felt inside and out, he ignored the burning in his lungs and the throbbing behind his temples. His heart had begun to beat a steady rhythm: _Almost there…almost there…almost there._

At last, the flickering of the red ambulance lights in front of the hospital swam into Buck’s focus and he practically threw himself through the maze of vehicles and tents. He tripped passed other exhausted bodies on stretchers in a makeshift ward to reach a nurse in scrubs holding a clipboard.

“Uh hey! Excuse me, I’m-I’m looking for a kid. He’s got-got brown hair…uh-uh Chr-Christopher?”

“How old?”

“Um, ei-eight? Maybe nine?” Buck stuttered out a description as quickly as he could while the woman flipped through pages, scanning names. “Last name is Diaz.”

“Christopher…Diaz.” The nurse looked up at him with wide, sympathetic eyes. “No, not here. You may want to check over there…at the black tent.”

Buck didn’t think it was possible for a person to keep surviving after their heart stopping so many times in a day, yet there he still stood. He followed the woman’s gaze to the left where he spotted a dark tent filled with white sheet covered lumps. “Is-isn’t that the…”

“The morgue.” She said it so matter-of-factly like she hadn’t just delivered the most horrific blow she could’ve to the man. “Excuse me.”

As she walked away to continue tending her patients, Buck wanted to hate her for what she’d said, what she’d done, to him. But he couldn’t find fault with the woman, considering she’d probably been doing nothing but delivering bad news all day. By now, he could only imagine how much she’d had to close herself off to the world around her.

Buck pulled in a series of ragged breaths, hating how much everything within hurt, but knowing he deserved it. The possibility of Christopher laying beneath one of those white sheets told him he deserved everything he’d felt today and worse. He turned and tried to stagger forward, to do what he knew he needed to confirm Christopher’s location—one way or another.

He got only a few feet away before he stopped himself, unable to cross the threshold of that dark place. Something inside him just knew…Christopher wasn’t there. That Christopher was still out in the city somewhere, that he was waiting for Buck to find him, was what had him turning and fleeing towards the safety of the other tents. There was life there, and where there was life, he’d find Christopher.

Buck kept asking people around him if they’d seen a little boy, seen Christopher, but nobody could help him. He’d spent all day searching on his own, after helping so many people, but had received so little help of his own. A voice in his head, not the one berating him all day but one that sounded suspiciously like Maddie, whispered to him, _So, ask for it, dummy._

Mercifully, the next group he came across was in possession of a working cell phone. Buck thanked the heavens that Maddie always made him memorize her phone numbers, no matter where she went. _I want you to be able to reach me if you need me, _she’d always tell him.

The ringing seemed to go on forever before he heard his big sister’s soft, but clearly stressed, _“Hello?”_ in his ear.

“Hey, it’s me.”

_“Buck?”_ He sensed the confusion in her voice and tried to prepare for the onslaught of questions he knew would be coming. _“Where are you? I-I don’t know this number.”_

Buck’s left hand shook from the strain of his helplessness, of needing someone for just a second, and he dug his hand deep into his pocket to try and quell the tremors. Pacing back and forth, he did his best to keep his voice steady. “I borrowed someone’s phone. Maddie, I-I need your help.”

_“Okay,”_ he could hear her put on her 9-1-1 operator-nurse-big sister-responsible person voice. _“Tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”_

“Eddie dropped Christopher off with me. Um…he-he thought, you know, do-doing some activities with him would get me out of my apartment and…and out of my head.” Buck tried as hard as he could to quell his anguish, the self-loathing, at himself. He couldn’t help but feel yet another brick of guilt falling on him; Eddie had tried to help him and look how Buck had repaid him. “Maddie, I brought him to the Pier.”

_“Oh my god, you were there?”_

“I had him. Mads, I-I had him! I kept him safe!” Buck tried to make his sister hear how hard he’d tried, that he’d done what he was supposed to do, that he hadn’t given up. “We were, uh, we were on top of a ladder truck!” The irony wasn’t lost on either sibling. “And then the water…receded-”

Maddie quickly interrupted him, tension filling her throat. _“Okay, you’re not answering me. Are you injured?! Bleeding?!”_

“No! IT DOESN’T MATTER. Don’t you **hear **what I am saying?” Buck paused for a small infinity before he forced the words out. “Christopher is gone. I checked the-the emergency refuge camps at the Promenade and at the high school-”

_“Okay, did you…check the VA hospital? The command center? You know, on Sawtelle?”_

“I’m here now, and he…” Buck turned his head to look at the hospital entrance and felt like all but the worst of his fears had crawled out of the earth to haunt him. Eddie was at the hospital entrance, directing patients and completely unaware of Christopher’s crisis. Buck’s jaw dropped and he ran to hide behind a triage tent. “Oh god, god, god!”

_“What?!”_

“Eddie’s here…” Buck’s whispers felt louder in his ears than he’d ever thought possible.

_“Does he know what happened?”_ Buck couldn’t answer her, couldn’t voice the deep shame of his inaction, his fear, out loud. _“**Evan, you have to tell him.**”_

“How?” The tears Buck had managed to reign in the entire day started to seep from his eyes, his throat burned with the anguish of his culpability. “How do you tell your best friend that you lost his son?”

_“No, no, no! He’s his father. Okay, you have to tell him that Christopher’s missing.”_

“No, Maddie. I **need **to keep on looking for him. I need to find him!”

_“Buck! You are in no condition to go looking for Christopher by yourself!” _Buck could hear the sorrow in her voice, the tears welling up in her eyes, and the guilt continued to bury him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt his sister; he just…just needed some help. _“I’m coming down there!”_

“No! No! No, Maddie! Mad-” The phone clicked in his ear and Buck stared down at the phone, tremors hitting both hands. He stared around, unsure of what to do, the fear of his next move churning in his gut.

While Buck hastily returned the cell phone to its owner, he saw a bunch of USPS trucks pull up in front of the hospital. Hearing Bobby’s call of _“Need some help here!” _had him turning his head in surprise, but also leaving him out in the open for Eddie to stumble across him. Knowing he had no choice, Buck grabbed onto an IV pole to stand up, before girding himself to completely destroy his best friend’s life.

“Buck?” Eddie stared at him, his face a mask of confusion. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

Buck couldn’t take his friend’s checking his injuries, his concern for Buck; he knew he didn’t deserve it. “Eddie-”

“Wait, where’s Christopher?”

“Eddie!”

It was then Eddie seemed to stop and really look at Buck, really saw him for the first time. His soaked, ripped clothes, bleeding arms and face, and, worst of all, Christopher’s glasses around his neck. “Why do you have his glasses?”

Buck’s breath hitched in his chest, the pain seemed worse than when his embolism had happened. He gently touched the tips of his fingers to the bridge of Christopher’s glasses. “We, uh…Me-me and Christopher…” Buck hated the way his voice continued to waver, hated that he had to get the words out, hated what he had to tell Eddie, hated that he wasn’t stronger.

“We were…at the beach.” Buck lifted the broken glasses over his head as delicately as he could while the look in Eddie’s eyes, the terror at what Buck was telling him, penetrated every fiber of Buck’s being. He forced himself to hold back his tears, telling himself he didn’t deserve to cry over what he’d done.

The effort to continue was herculean, but Buck forced himself to go on. “And, um, listen okay. I-I swear to you. I-I-I tried.” Eddie had almost imperceptibly nodded his head, his eyes huge, like he’d been staring into headlights, before dropping them to his feet. Buck saw Eddie’s jaw twitching, imagined him clenching his teeth against the onslaught of pain the man he’d trusted with his son was raining down on him.

“Eddie…” The sight of his best friend struggling to contain his grief, fighting against the misery of what Buck was telling him, broke any resolve Evan Buckley had. His voice breaking and tears weeping from his eyes, he fought to get out his confession. “Eddie, it just didn’t…I mean, I-I…Eddie, I don’t know how to say it. Um…Eddie, he-he just vanished-”

Through his tears and anguish, Buck didn’t notice Eddie’s own tear-filled gaze freeze on something behind him.

“Christopher?”

“Eddie-” Buck’s words halted, and he slowly watched as Eddie brushed passed him.

“Christopher?!”

_It couldn’t be…_

“Dad!”

Buck’s jaw dropped as he heard that beautiful little voice ring through his soul like a celestial bell. Eddie’s heaving breaths as he all but wrenched his son from the grasp of the woman holding him, his relieved “Oh my god” reaching Buck’s ears, were like a balm to his conscience that he knew he wasn’t worthy of. He stuttered out relieved breaths of his own, the shock of seeing Christopher in one piece, looking nearly unharmed, floored him.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Buck couldn’t tell who Eddie’s gratitude was for, and in that moment, he didn’t care. _He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive._

“You’re Buck?” The woman’s smile was soft, filled with her own small sense of relief.

“No! I’m his father, Eddie.”

She softly nodded her head and raised her hands lightly. “He was looking for Buck.”

The sight of Christopher in Eddie’s arms, where he belonged, rooted Buck to the ground. He gasped with relief, gratitude, shock, and the rush of adrenaline seeing the boy alive. He could have laughed from the joy of a living, breathing Christopher, and he didn’t hear Chimney or the rest of his former team appear in front of him pushing a man on a stretcher.

“Make a hole! Get him inside”

Part of Buck still couldn’t believe what he was seeing was real. He blinked his eyes furiously, hoping with all he had that the vision in front of him wouldn’t change, that he hadn’t completely failed Eddie, and Christopher was in fact here in his father’s arms.

“Buck!” Chimney latched onto Buck’s left arm, grounding his breathless friend while he continued to stare at the pair across the parking lot. “What happened to you?”

Hen and Bobby followed Chimney, gazing at Buck, trying to figure out what had the young firefighter frozen to the spot. Hen analyzed him with her eyes, cataloging potential injuries as her eyes roved, while Bobby tried to get his attention. “Hey.”

When Buck ignored him in favor of his ogling, Bobby wrinkled his brow and turned to see what he was looking at. Seeing Eddie holding Christopher and staring at Buck with something akin to a confused sort of reverence had the Captain no less concerned. Turning back to the youngest member of his crew, seeing Buck’s chest lurching with the effort to breathe and his slowly deflating expression, had him asking, “You two okay?”

Buck’s eyes started to glaze over, but he still couldn’t unsee the sight in front of him. He refused to allow himself to stop gazing at the father and son he’d almost manage to permanently divide, but he also wouldn’t allow himself the reprieve of going any closer. Never wanting to disappoint his Captain though, he raised his eyes to address to the man he so admired. “Yeah…we’re-we’re great.”

The tragedy and guilt of the day, his joy at seeing Christopher alive and reunited with Eddie, the exhaustion and sudden loss of adrenaline, all combined with injuries and blood loss he couldn’t measure finally caught up to Buck. Before he knew it, his knees were giving out and he felt his body caught by three pairs of strong arms.

Bobby, Chimney, and Hen all managed to lower Buck’s near-dead weight to the ground, though they were all shocked to see the young man hadn’t managed to pass out. Chimney ran inside to get help, while Bobby kept Buck sitting up. Hen pleaded with him to hang on and Buck clung to her arm, needing to feel someone alive, to prove he wasn’t dead yet. He needed to know what was happening was real.

Buck tried his hardest to stay alert, to listen to Hen’s commands, to follow what Bobby was trying to tell him, but he couldn’t really see or hear anymore. Their words floated around his ears like he was back underwater, and his vision took on a soapy hue as if he was watching everything through a washing machine. He could feel Hen’s sturdy arms around him, the warmth of Bobby’s hands on his freezing cheeks trying desperately to reach him through the haze, but nothing was making it through.

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought before the darkness took him, he could feel a small hand reach out to card through his hair.

That’s all there was, the warmth of touch, and then, darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm anticipating at least another chapter or two before this story is complete. I may split the next chapter up into more than one POV, but it will definitely be from at least Eddie's. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading! If you have any thoughts or critiques, please do share them! It feeds my Lit and Writing major soul ♡


	3. What do you say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the evening finally winding down and all 118 family members accounted for, the team stands vigil over their injured. How will Eddie cope with what happened to his son and to Buck? And how will he find the right words to say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who patiently awaited this chapter! I hope it was worth it! 
> 
> Here we have a little look into post-Christopher-rescue from Eddie's point of view. We'll get a little Dad Bobby wisdom and some general fluffiness. 
> 
> As usual, mistakes are no one's fault but mine and I own no part of the majesty that is 9-1-1.

_Beep…beep…beep…beep…beep…_

Despite the weight of his exhaustion hanging over him, Eddie’s eyes kept a steady focus on the Holter monitor. For the last four hours, the man had followed a steady pattern of checking the monitors, checking Buck, _memorizing every inch of Christopher_, and back. Over and over, repeat, repeat, repeat, until he was certain he could draw every detail in this room from memory.

Not for the hundredth time that night, Eddie thought about how close he’d come to losing the both of them.

When he had stumbled across Buck hours earlier, the younger man soaked through to the skin, filthy, bleeding, and looking like he’d been ready to collapse about two hours earlier, Eddie’s immediate thought had been panic. _What had happened? Was he injured? Had he gotten caught in the waves?_

It was that last thought that brought unmitigated terror. If Buck was here looking like he’d just been through the tsunami, where the hell was Christopher? When Buck started talking, trying to explain to Eddie what had happened to his little boy, Eddie could barely keep himself standing tall.

It wasn’t possible. There was no way his son, _el luz de su Vida_, was gone. Eddie would know; he would feel it in his bones, in his very soul, if Christopher had left this world. It just couldn’t be true.

But the harder Buck struggled to get the words out, the worse Eddie could feel his heart cracking in two. He felt as though someone had taken a set of Jaws, jammed them deep into his chest cavity, and were slowly prying his entire being in half. There weren’t words for the agony he’d started to feel, and as he watched Buck’s ministrations, he clenched his jaw against the onslaught of terror.

But as quickly as he’d started to feel like he was dying from the inside out, Eddie saw something behind Buck that washed away every horrible sensation that had overcome him minutes earlier. Somewhere, over the pounding in his ears, Eddie heard Buck say that Christopher had just vanished, but the father was already making a beeline for the woman holding a little boy Eddie knew beyond a shadow of doubt was his son.

He’d repeated Christopher’s name over and over like a prayer, silently thanking the Lord again and again for the living breathing child in his arms. He ran his hands over inch of his son, beyond grateful that he looked merely exhausted and a little damp.

Christopher’s cries of “Dad!” were music to his ears.

No more than a minute had passed when Eddie realized Christopher was shouting for Buck, trying to escape the confines of his father’s arms to reach the man Eddie was told his son had been searching for all day. Looking over, Eddie noticed Buck had collapsed, held securely in Hen’s arms while Bobby tried to reach the exhausted man who’d retreated somewhere in his head.

Eddie had picked up his son and raced over to the trio, reaching them just as Buck’s eyes had started to close. Christopher had shouted Buck’s name once more, reaching his hand out to touch Buck’s head, the only part of Buck he could get to from the cage of Eddie’s arms, and whispering that he was okay. _You’re okay, kid, _Christopher had whispered.

Something about the reverence in his son’s voice gave Eddie pause, as if there was some sort of inside joke he was missing.

Bobby and Chim managed to load Buck onto a gurney and raced him into the VA hospital. Doctors confirmed he’d suffered lacerations to his legs and arms, several bruised ribs, severe dehydration, and exhaustion. Most of that was easily dealt with, but there was also some swelling in his left leg and abdomen that gave the doctors concern. They ended up having him transferred to UCLA Medical as soon as a bed opened, and the doctors kept him sedated while they replenished his fluids and monitored his vitals.

Although he’d agreed to having Christopher checked out at the hospital, once it was determined the kid had only minor scrapes and bruises with a hint of exhaustion, Eddie hadn’t let his son out of his arms or left Buck. The pair of them, along with Maddie, Bobby, Hen, Chimney, and eventually Athena parked themselves in and around Buck’s hospital room, all keeping silent vigil over the young firefighter.

Hours went by and eventually Bobby, Athena, and Hen all said temporary goodbyes, needing to get home to check on their other family members. They all promised to return in the morning and soon, only Maddie, Chimney, Eddie and Christopher remained. Christopher had fallen asleep almost immediately after his examination by the doctors, and while Eddie knew he should get his son home to sleep in his own bed, he didn’t have the strength to walk away from Buck just yet.

Sometime after 3 or 4 in the morning, Chimney convinced Maddie to leave the room and get some air. He couldn’t convince the woman to leave, but he figured some coffee and stretching her legs might help give her some relief from her worries for her young sibling. Chim gave a quick nod to Eddie, told him they’d be back in a bit, and that he’d be sure to bring him back the largest coffee he could find.

Buck’s hospital room door clicked softly shut behind the couple and the silence of the room, apart from the Holter, had Eddie feeling like all the tense air he’d been keeping inside him was finally escaping. His eyes roamed once more around the room, still attempting to memorize everything in it, when tears finally started dripping down his face.

Eddie tried not to shake from the force of his sobs, the shock and burn of what they’d almost lost today—_what he’d almost lost_—ripped through him. Clinging to Christopher as though his life depended on it, Eddie sent yet another silent prayer to the sky, thanking the Heavens for blessing him with yet another miracle of life.

After a few minutes, Eddie’s sobs dissipated to a slow trickle, and he readjusted Christopher on his lap so his head could rest on Eddie’s right shoulder. Scooting his chair a little closer to Buck’s bed, he swept his eyes over the sleeping man again, his medically-trained eyes checking over the scrapes on his face and confirming he was still breathing correctly.

Relieved that everything remained in order, Eddie swept his hand down over his eyes, a sigh rattling its way through his chest. “Dios mío, Buck, you can’t keep doing this. You’re going to give me a damn heart attack.”

His words were little more than a whisper, fear of waking the exhausted man permeating his thoughts. But the aches and fear of the day were finally catching up to him, and Eddie couldn’t seem to make the words stop. “First the truck, and now this? What are we going to do with you?”

Eddie paused, uncertain of what he could or even would say next. The weight of his knowledge, of what he could only imagine Buck had gone through and seen while he’d spent the entire day searching for the one person who meant the most to Eddie. There weren’t words for what Eddie owed Buck; Eddie couldn’t put into words what Buck had done for him that day.

“I suppose we’ll have to wrap him in bubble wrap and packing peanuts.”

The sound of another voice jolted him from his thoughts and Eddie’s eyes rolled over to the sight of his Captain gently closing the room door. He slowly stepped over to the chair next to Eddie’s, took a seat, and gave the man’s left shoulder a squeeze. “How you doing, Eddie?”

“Cap? What are you doing here? I thought you wouldn’t be back for another few hours.”

“Yeah, well, the kids and Athena are okay. House is straightened out, nothing really worse for the wear thankfully. Your place seems fine too, in case you were wondering.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows at the details his captain passed on, grateful that the man had gone out of his way to check his place, but not missing how Bobby hadn’t answered his question. The firefighter waited for his Captain to elaborate.

“I couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about Buck and after tossing and turning for a good hour, Athena told me I should just come back.”

Eddie chuckled softly at the mention of Bobby’s wife. “Smart woman.”

“Yeah, she’s something.”

The two men smiled at each other for a minute before returning their gazes back to the hospital bed. Eddie sighed again, brushing his hand over Christopher’s hair, relishing in the warmth of his son underneath his chin. “We almost lost them today, Bobby.”

“I know.”

A few more tears clouded Eddie’s vision and he pressed his fingers to his eyes, willing them to stop watering. “The whole day…Christopher was missing the whole day, and I had no idea.” Eddie’s body shook again with the force of his guilt. “And Buck…he didn’t stop. He kept going, kept looking, _he didn’t give up._”

“No,” Bobby shook his head, agreeing with Eddie. “He didn’t. Buck never does.”

“How do I…” Eddie hesitated to ask his next question, knowing how Bobby might feel if he asked, but unable to stop himself. “How do I thank someone for saving my son’s life, for protecting him when I couldn’t? For putting himself in jeopardy to save my son? How do you repay someone for that? What do you say?”

Eddie looked to his captain, hating that he’d asked something like that of Bobby, a man whose children weren’t saved. A man who, at one point, lost everything that meant anything to him. To Bobby’s credit though, he merely looked down at his lap for a moment before smiling softly at Eddie. He clasped the younger man on the shoulder comfortingly again and simply said, “Just tell him how you feel, Eddie. Tell him the truth. Tell him what he already knows.”

Eddie cocked his head in slight confusion and turned to look at Bobby.

“Eddie, Buck already knows what Christopher means to you, that he’s the most important thing in the world to you. He wouldn’t have risked his life in a tsunami to save him, wouldn’t have spent 15 hours tearing this city apart looking for your son, if he didn’t already know. And I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have done all that with the kind of fervor he did if he didn’t love the kid too.”

More tears fell from Eddie’s eyes, but he softly chuckled at Bobby’s statements, realizing there were no truer words about Buck in this moment than that. He looked down at his son, relishing in his chest moving up and down, the soft flutter of his eyelids as he slept, beyond grateful again for this moment and the man in the hospital bed.

“We don’t always get second chances in this life, Eddie, so when you have the opportunity to say something that means everything, take it. You may not have the words right now, but when you find them, I’m sure they’ll be the right ones.”

Bobby smiled at him again before lightly ruffling his hand through Christopher’s hair. Eddie turned to his captain again, somber gratitude in his eyes.

“Thank you, Bobby.”

“Anytime, Eddie. And if I can give you one more piece of advice?”

Eddie raised an eyebrow at the older man again, waiting for what he had to say.

“Take a break from sentry duty and get some rest. You look dead on your feet. I’m here, for all of you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

With that, Bobby leaned back in his chair, comfortably crossing his arms and settling in to stand guard over the room. Eddie smiled again before allowing himself to get as comfortable as he could in the horrible hospital chair.

It was only a few minutes later, after closing his eyes and allowing his head to rest gently on top of Christopher’s, that Eddie fully embraced the comforting security of his captain’s presence and felt himself succumb to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm aiming to have the final installment up either tonight or tomorrow. 
> 
> Feedback and kudos are always as welcome as cookies and cat videos ♡


	4. Wait for Me to Come Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buck closes in on himself after the tsunami, consumed by his guilt and his insecurities. How will he find his way back to himself and to the little boy he's developed such a devotion for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait everyone, but I hope this conclusion is worth it! 
> 
> This is the final chapter of "Make It Real" where we will get a bit of Dad!Bobby, quite a bit of self-deprecating Buck, and oodles of brotherly love between Eddie and Buck. Let me preface this with I will go down with the Buddie ship as much as the next 9-1-1 fan, but the muses were sending me on a different route this fic. I still think I've managed to do our boys justice, but let me know your thoughts in the comments! 
> 
> This is mostly based on canon interspersed with a few of my own delusions. As usual, mistakes are all mine, I own nothing, and Christopher is my favorite.  
♡

Around 8:30 in the morning after the tsunami, Buck’s eyes flickered open, the sting of bright lights making him wish he hadn’t bothered. The harshness of the light seemed to only instigate the pounding in his head, and he hissed with irritation.

“Oops, sorry about that, kiddo. Hang on a sec.”

There was the sound of blinds snapping closed and the brightness of the room toned down a few notches. Buck massaged the feeling of sensitivity out of his eyes before opening them again and coming face to face with his captain. “Bobby? What are you doing here? What happened? Oh my god, where’s Christopher?!”

Buck couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to fall asleep while Christopher was still lost somewhere in Los Angeles. He frantically started ripping the covers away from him, moving to tear off the wires stuck to him. He was manic in his efforts, not taking the time to consider that he was in a hospital bed or why when Bobby grabbed his hands to cease his movements.

“Buck. Buck. BUCK! Stop!”

When holding Buck’s hands hadn’t stopped his attempts to flee, Bobby grabbed Buck’s cheeks with both hands, carefully but firmly holding his head in place so the younger man could look him in the eyes.

“Buck, stop! Take a deep breath. Christopher is fine. He’s safe; we got him. Just breathe. Breathe, kiddo.”

Buck followed Bobby’s overemphasized breaths, waiting for his fear to calm and his heart to stop racing. When he’d managed to mostly fend off the feeling of a panic attack, he grabbed onto Bobby’s wrists, eager for the grounding presence of his captain. “Where is he, Bobby?”

“He’s with Eddie. The two of them were here all night, only left a little bit ago. Christopher wanted to stay but the kid was wrecked. Eddie took him home for a bit, but they promised to come back this afternoon.”

For the first time since he’d seen that first wave coming for him and Eddie’s son, Buck felt the tension he’d been holding in relinquish the vice grip on his heart. “Thank god. I mean that’s…that’s good. Really good. I’m so glad they’re okay.”

Bobby had released his grip on Buck’s face, moving one hand to his shoulder instead and helping the young firefighter back under his mountain of blankets. “Christopher is going to be just fine, thanks to you.”

Buck ignored the way Bobby smiled with pride at him, choosing to look down at his trembling hands instead. He noticed the tremors had calmed since he’d made it to the safety of family, but there was still a gradual shake to them. Whether it was from fear or the bone-deep chill of the ocean water he could still feel in his skin, Buck couldn’t say. “I lost him, Bobby. I took him to the Pier and there was a tsunami and  **I lost him. ** He would’ve never been out there or missing in the first place if it wasn’t for me.”

“Buck,” Bobby said, grabbing Buck’s hands to help quell their shaking. “You took a kid you care about for a nice day at the beach and a catastrophic event happened. A force of nature completely out of your control happened. Christopher may have gone missing, but  **you ** are still the one who saved his life. You pulled him, along with a dozen other people, from the water and  **kept him alive. ** Him disappearing was an accident, a direct result of the tsunami the two of you were fighting to survive. It was not your fault.”

“Then why do I feel so guilty, Bobby?”

The older man couldn’t help the pang in his heart at the sight of Buck’s distraught, glistening eyes. The fact that Buck had managed an incredible feat under such duress, with a life-threatening medical issue no less, was incredible, and the younger man didn’t even see it. As struck as the 118 Captain was by Buck’s heroics, it was equally grounding to see the kid pull up his knees and curl in on himself in shame and despair.

“Listen kiddo,” Bobby gently placed a hand on Buck’s right shoulder, nudging his face from where it’d been hidden behind his left forearm resting on his knees. “I know everything looks pretty bleak right now, feels like you should’ve done more, like you failed somehow. But I’ll tell you something, that little boy spent the past three hours doing nothing but talking about how you saved him. How  **brave ** you were, how  **unafraid ** you made him feel, how  **safe ** every person you rescued was. Eddie may be Christopher’s father and first hero, Buck, but today you became his second.  **Do not ** let yourself lose sight of that.  **Don’t ** erase the fact that you saved that boy’s life yesterday.”

If anyone had stumbled across Buck and his captain just then, he’d have denied his tears as anything other than residual floodwaters leaking out of him. He wanted to deny Bobby, wanted to refuse the right to be proud of any of his actions in the past twenty-four hours. But Buck couldn’t deny the fact that Christopher being alive was what counted. It didn’t matter what Buck may be guilty about; Christopher was alive, and nothing else really mattered.

Buck returned Bobby’s wide smile with a small one of his own but didn’t say anything further as the door to his room slowly opened to reveal his sister and Chimney. Both didn’t look much better than he figured he looked, but he could pretend for their sake.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all the pretending Buck did that day.

Bobby, Maddie, Chimney, and Hen may have all spent different parts of the day reassuring him that he was a hero and should be proud of himself, but Buck couldn’t let go of his agony. That black pit of guilt remained in his stomach, twisting and turning like the angry waves of yesterday, refusing to leave him or let him forget the sound of Christopher plunging off the side of that ladder truck.

When Christopher and Eddie returned to UCLA that afternoon, Buck put on a brave face for the kid and pretended like everything was fine. His enthusiasm for Christopher being relatively unscathed required no faking but keeping his eyes down and averted from Eddie’s required more concentration than he was capable of. In the end, he kept the conversation superficial and short before feigning exhaustion and allowing Maddie to distract the father and son while he pretended to sleep.

Thankfully, the following day saw the swelling in his leg go down, his exhaustion mostly a non-issue, and his body fully rehydrated. Buck couldn’t deny the irony of a man who spent most of the day wading through the water being dehydrated but, then again, Fate always did have a sense of humor when it came to his health. His ribs lacerations would take longer to heal, but his doctor didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t finish recuperating at home.

Maddie delivered him home, making every attempt to come in and make him lunch or take care of him for the rest of the day, assuring him that work would understand another absence. The younger Buckley convinced her to return to her regular life, however, reassuring her that he’d be fine, and residents of LA needed her more than he did at the moment.

For the next four days, Buck dodged everyone’s attempts to contact him, cook for him, or just be around him in general. He used his lack of cell phone, his old one was at the bottom of the Pacific somewhere, as an excuse for why no one could easily get in touch with him. Buck knew he’d have to replace it eventually, realistically he couldn’t survive long-term without one, but for now, he was content to use that excuse until it dried up completely.

Eddie had been the hardest person to ignore. He came to Buck’s place every day, trying to convince him to let him in or at least get out of his apartment for a bit. If he answered the door at all, Buck always had an excuse prepared: he wasn’t in the mood to be out, he couldn’t meet him cause he didn’t have a car or a phone to call Uber, he was just too tired to leave his apartment or let anyone in.

That last excuse was truer than the others; Buck had barely slept more than two to three hours at a time since the tsunami. Visions of murky water, the rancid taste of saltwater, and Christopher’s cries for him haunted Buck’s nights. He woke up soaked in a cold sweat, covers twisted around his legs, and his screams fighting to escape his throat along with his heaving breaths.

Buck just couldn’t escape the feeling of guilt, the feeling of failure, of knowing he’d let Christopher and Eddie down.

Five days after the tsunami, Buck was sitting at his dining table, pondering what he was supposed to do next. He didn’t have a job, wasn’t even sure he deserved it at this point. If he couldn’t save Christopher properly, how was he supposed to save anyone else?

Buck felt so lost, as though he’d squandered any true sense of who he was—or who he was supposed to be. He’d gone from certainty and stability to ambiguity and displacement. He had a few ideas of what he wanted, where he wanted to be, but Buck wasn’t sure if that was the same place he needed to be.

He also wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to be downing a Corona at ten in the morning.

As Buck was brooding, three quick knocks sounded on his loft door. He debated not answering, pretending to be asleep or out, but he also figured he’d have to face the world eventually.

He didn’t particularly want to go back to living off Postmates and UberEATS. Especially considering he was technically still unemployed.

Buck heaved a sigh and slowly withdrew himself from his chair before heading to the door. Yanking it open, he wanted to kick himself for not checking his peephole first.

His shock at seeing Christopher and Eddie on the other side of the door was immeasurable. He let out a breath along with a hesitation. “Uh…”

“Hey, Buck!”

“Good mornin’, Buck.”

“H-hey, buddy.”

Christopher leaned softly against Buck, doing his best to hug him while leaning on his crutches. Buck’s surprise continued, unable to meet his eyes when Eddie greeted him so cheerfully. Eddie figured Buck’s hello was addressed to Christopher, but between the two adults, neither was truly sure who Buck was directly addressing.

“Okay,” Eddie ignored Buck’s hesitation and proceeded past the confused man through the door, placing Christopher’s backpack on the dining table. “There’s a morning snack, a midday snack, two coloring books, and a bunch of Legos. Between us, he’s never built anything that kinda looks like anything, he just likes stickin’ things together.” Eddie mostly said the last bit about the Legos through his teeth so Christopher wouldn’t hear him before directing his son to the couch in front of Buck’s television under the lofted bedroom. “Just right there, buddy.”

Eddie continued his address towards Buck, ignoring the way the other man’s face seemed to fold in on itself with confusion and irritation. Eddie’s hope was to keep the man mostly distracted so he couldn’t try and fend off Eddie’s attempts to assuage Buck’s presumed guilt over Christopher and the tsunami. He pulled a bill from his wallet, “There’s 20 bucks for pizza, and if I were you, I’d eat a couple extra slices. You look like you’re wasting away to nothing.”

That last part hadn’t been a lie. Looking at Buck, Eddie thought the man looked like he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days. Considering how long it had been since the tsunami, it could’ve been true.

“Eddie.”

Eddie ignored Buck’s attempt to interrupt his stream of conscious style chatter. Turning to Buck, he smiled widely, doing his best to make it seem like everything was as normal as possible.

After the first day or two of Buck’s limited contact, Eddie realized there was more going on than just post-natural disaster reclusiveness going on. Considering the heavy emotions Eddie felt over Buck’s saving his son’s life, Eddie could only imagine how Buck must feel on the opposite end. Working with the man for close to a year had made Eddie realize just how heavy-handed Buck could be in his emotions when it came to the people he couldn’t save or the ones he did save but felt like he’d failed in some way, shape or form.

Somewhere along the way, Eddie realized that Evan Buckley just felt things in a pure, yet black and white way, not completely unlike the way his son felt things. To Buck, there was saving and failing, being the hero and being the guy who could’ve done more. Eddie could only hope that his efforts here would be enough to help shake Buck of this complex he had and didn’t deserve to carry.

Buck had saved his son’s life, and Eddie believed Buck deserved to know what that meant.

“I will say, honestly, you being laid up is workin’ out for me. I mean, you’re no Abuela and you’re a half a Carla, but you’ll do in a pinch.”

Eddie shrugged lightly, trying to keep the heaviness on Buck’s face from permeating the room. Based on the younger man’s expression, Eddie could see it was going to take more than a few “half-empty” compliments to reassure him.

Buck had remained standing in open doorway throughout Eddie’s instruction session, stunned at the man’s presence in his apartment, his willingness to relinquish his son into Buck’s hands again. After everything Christopher had been through with Buck, he couldn’t believe Eddie would be so willing to put his trust somewhere so unsafe again. It didn’t make sense; Buck was the reason Christopher had been missing in the first place. Why would Eddie even  **consider ** allowing Buck to take charge of his son again? His disbelief carried him across the small space to Eddie, though it afforded him a good foot of space as a boundary.

“You want me…to watch Christopher?”

“It’s easy. He’s not very fast.” Eddie turned to look at his son, amazed at the way his kid could be so enraptured in something as simple as a cartoon when, days earlier, he’d nearly lost his life in a tsunami.

Christopher hadn’t completely bounced back, of course. Nightmares had started plaguing his nighttime dreams and Eddie hated the way he felt so useless in the face of his son’s fear. But, during the day, Christopher managed to do okay for himself with Eddie and other people looking out for him. Eddie knew his son would be okay eventually; he had Buck to thank for that. Now, Eddie knew it was his turn to allow his son to help Buck.

“After everything that happened?”

Buck couldn’t ignore the way his heart clenched at the thought of the tsunami, Christopher’s screams, the loss of the boy from his arms. The memories of Christopher falling off the ladder truck, Buck’s frantic search for him through Los Angeles, and the young boy practically falling into Eddie’s lap clouded his vision.

Meanwhile, Eddie felt his heart pang at the sadness, the guilt, in Buck’s voice. He could only begin to imagine the weight of Buck’s pain, his notions about the kind of pain Shannon carried when she was alive and alone with Christopher barely coming close, and he couldn’t help but wish there was more he could do for this man—who’d become so much more than his best friend—in that moment.

“A natural disaster happened, Buck-”

“I  **lost him, ** Eddie.” The break in Buck’s voice could practically be heard from a mile away. Both men felt their hearts clench again, though for completely different reasons. But Eddie refused to allow Buck to carry the weight of an entire disaster on his shoulders.

“No, you  **saved him. ** That’s how he remembers it.” Eddie met Buck’s eyes straight on and pointed to his son, refusing to allow Buck to ignore the living, breathing, nearly-100% okay child sitting in the man’s living room.

Buck turned his eyes to Christopher, relishing in the way the kid seemed engrossed in the cartoon on the screen. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get to enjoy the sight of Christopher doing something as simple as sitting down and watching tv again, and the sight was nearly enough to bring Buck to his knees. These last few days of not seeing the kid had been hell for Buck; the weight of all these fears and emotions he’d been carrying had been more overwhelming than he’d expected.

But even so, he still couldn’t ignore the fact that he felt like he’d failed Christopher, failed Eddie.

“Now, it’s his turn to do the same for you.”

Eddie’s declaration had Buck confused again. Why was Eddie doing this for him? Giving him this chance again?  _ Buck had let him down. He’d lost his son.  _ Why did Eddie think Buck was even worthy of being in the same room with this precious little boy, let alone watching him or allowing his son to try to “heal” Buck in some way? It just didn’t make sense.

Buck tore his eyes away from Christopher, to briefly flick to Eddie’s, to stare at a random point on his kitchen countertops, before returning to Eddie’s eyes again. “I-I was sposed’ to look out for him…”

“And, what? You think you failed?”  _ And there it was.  _ The look on Buck’s face, the way he shuffled his feet in shame, told Eddie everything he needed to know. At that moment, Eddie realized it wasn’t reassurance of his successes Buck needed, but reassurance that everyone fails. Buck tried so hard to be everyone’s hero, especially Christopher’s. Eddie figured now was the time to show Buck you could be a hero and still make a mistake every now and again.

After all, even Batman makes mistakes every once and a while.

“Buck, I fail that kid more times than I care to count,  **and I’m his father. ** But I love him enough to never stop trying.” At Eddie’s words, Buck’s gaze returned to Christopher, as if he was seeing him for the first time in a new way. “And I know you do too.”

For the first time, Buck felt a bit of his guilt over losing Christopher leave his shoulders. Maybe…maybe if Eddie failed Christopher, if he thought the occasional, truly unpredictable circumstance, was an acceptable reason to fail, then Buck didn’t have to feel like the lowest common denominator in existence. It didn’t give Buck an excuse to mess up on the regular, of course not, but maybe it meant that  _ this one time  _ Buck didn’t have to feel like such a disappointment over what had happened.

Eddie could see he was making it through to Buck, but there was still a hint of doubt in the man’s eyes. He couldn’t stand the way this man, who’d been more than just his friend for longer than practically anyone else in his life, could stand there and think he was anything less than incredible for what he’d done. Buck had saved the only thing that meant or would ever mean anything to Eddie, and yet he still couldn’t allow himself to think of this that way.

Figuring that he had nothing to lose, Eddie went for the Hail Mary.

“Buck, listen to me,” Eddie grasped onto the younger man’s right shoulder, shaking him lightly and forcing him to look in Eddie’s eyes. “I know you have every reason blowing up in your mind why you shouldn’t believe me, why you should doubt the meaning behind what you went through to try and find my son and save his life  **again. ** But you should know man, what you have done for me is unlike anything that anyone could do for a man, for a parent. Saving the life of someone’s child, regardless of what came before or after it, is  **everything. ** You’re a warrior, Buck, a hero.”

Eddie continued to stare into Buck’s eyes, willing the younger man to hear what he was trying to assure him, that this wasn’t just about saving Eddie’s son. Buck could only stare while his brain short-circuited at Eddie’s words, willing them to be true and not a manufactured dream of his guilty conscience.

“I love my son, Evan Buckley, and I know you do too. You fought through a tsunami to save him and then you burned a path through this city trying to find him when he was lost. I once told you you could have my back any day, and  **you did. ** We may not be brothers, Buck, but that day you became my brother-in-arms. You fought for me, for my son, when I couldn’t, and that’s what it truly means to be a partner,  **to be family.** ”

Buck could feel his eyes welling up at Eddie’s speech, almost unwilling to believe that what he was hearing was the truth. He still couldn’t believe Eddie was so open to receiving Buck as anything other than a partner in a job, yet here he was, calling him “brother” and telling him he’d managed to do something right.

It was all Buck had ever wanted out of life and he still couldn’t fully accept it.

“Buck,” Eddie gripped Buck’s shoulder again, bringing the latter’s gaze up from where it had fallen to the floor. “There’s nobody in this world I trust more with my son  **than you.** ”

Eddie allowed their gazes to remain locked for a brief second more, his hands searing into Buck’s skin with the force of his words and the impact of their meaning, before releasing him and turning to Christopher.

To Buck’s credit, he managed to clench his jaw long enough for Eddie to turn away before his mouth fell open in shock. If he thought the feeling of Eddie calling him a brother would be grounding, Buck could never have prepared himself for him all but entrusting the life of his son in his hands. It was as though every weight he’d been carrying since the tsunami fell off his back and disintegrated while reinvigorating him with a kind of strength he’d never thought himself capable of.

The confidence Eddie had in Buck, the indescribable gifts he’d just given him, was something he may have once thought he didn’t deserve but was now damn sure he’d do whatever he had to do earn.

As Buck listened to the father kiss his son goodbye, telling him to have fun and that he loved him, Buck couldn’t help the smile that danced across his face. While Buck certainly wished he could be following his friend,  _ his brother,  _ to the firehouse to do the job they both loved, he couldn’t help but think right now with this young boy was where he was supposed to be.

Eddie gently placed Christopher back on his seat in front of the tv before returning to the middle of the apartment and making a beeline for Buck’s door. He figured with the heaviness of the conversation over and dealt with, now was the time to give Buck a reprieve and make his exit. But, he still couldn’t resist a small joke, if only to lighten the mood before he left. “Maybe try going to the zoo this time? Something inland?”

Buck softly chuckled at Eddie’s joke but kept his eyes on Christopher, still not entirely sure this conversation had happened exactly the way it had. But just as Eddie was about to close the door, he hesitated in the doorway.

“Oh, uh-” Buck turned back, not certain what sort of emotional bomb Eddie would have left to drop on him, but willing to give him the chance. “Thank you…for not giving up.”

Eddie nodded to the man once more before turning and closing the door behind him. He kept hold of the doorknob and closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for the sound of Buck’s footsteps to free him from his uncertainty. When he heard Buck’s feet carry him across his apartment to what Eddie could only hope was his son, he felt his heart restart again.

His son was safe, Buck was safe, and they all had each other. Everything else would happen the way it would, but for now, this was enough.

Buck couldn’t help but stare at the closed door of his apartment for a moment after Eddie left, enjoying the contentment that had washed over him, the sight of the little boy he’d come to love so much sitting watching television like nothing bad had happened. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling before chuckling once and moving across the floor to the living room.

“Hey, Chris,” he sat down next to the little boy and gently bumped his shoulder with his own. Christopher laughed at the goofy grin across Buck’s face and the man realized that, no matter what happened next, the most important thing was Christopher.

Christopher laughing, Christopher watching cartoons, Christopher having Eddie and Buck.

Buck was certain he’d fail again in life, more times than he could count. Just this once, though, he’d let himself enjoy the success of keeping one little boy alive long enough to find his father again. Because that’s what life was about.

It wasn’t about the wins and losses, the failures or successes.

Life was about finding home and all the people you save—or who save you—along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! I'm not sure what my next work will be, but the muses have been whispering to me quite a bit these days. Let's hope I don't leave you waiting too long! 
> 
> I appreciate all your comments, critiques, and kudos. Stay courageous, my lovelies, and remember to always be kind to yourselves ♡


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